1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to generating content. More particularly, the present invention relates to generating content dynamically without a Web server.
2. Description of the Related Art
The classic Web application model operates by user actions in the interface trigger of a hypertext transfer protocol request back to a Web server. The server does some processing—retrieving data, crunching numbers, talking to various legacy systems—and then returns a hypertext markup language page to the client. The classic Web application model is adapted from the Web's original use as a hypertext medium, but what makes the Web good for hypertext does not necessarily make it good for software applications.
The Web application model used extensively today contains two main components: a thin, Web-based client and a thick, Web/application server. The thin client communicates with the server using several common mechanisms like JavaServer Pages™, JavaScript™ forms, and servlets. The server component is responsible for generating hypertext markup language content that is sent back to the thin client to be rendered. However, often a Web application needs to run on the client itself, and it is not practical to setup a server on the same node as the client just to handle the dynamic content.
One such example is an installation application. In this case, the application needs to run on the client machine and is used to install one or more software products. Due to time, resource, and even licensing restraints, it is not practical for a Web server to be preinstalled and configured solely to enable dynamic content of the installer application.